Come here only if you are curious to see the remodeling that has taken place over the past year or 2 because it looks great.  But that's where the greatness ends, and I'm sure the managers are hoping you won't see past this façade.  In reality, it's just another run-of-the-mill sit down Chinese restaurant.  The food is pretty generic too. Plus the server spilled my drink all over the table, which is an unfortunate experience I won't soon forget.  :-/
Review Source:Some of the best Chinese food I have ever had. Â Very close to P.F. Chang's in quality. Â When you order General Tso or Orange or Honey or Lemon chicken you get real white meat chunks of chicken not just fried batter and mixed chicken parts.
Good food for the money....best Chinese around in my opinion for a small place. Â Â
The only negative I found was the egg and spring rolls tend to be a bit greasy. Â Oil not hot enough maybe?
Other than that...very good. Â Good service too. Â Clean and nice.
Egg roll and Crab Rangoon was the highlight, that is what earned the 2 stars. Was not impressed with the egg foo young, except for the fact that they did use decent sized shrimp. Â The gravy tasted like it was made from a package. Â Girlfriend ordered the orange chicken, she barely ate any of it due to the presence of bitter orange peels and the chicken was dry. Â Overall I felt the food was bland and was disappointed. Had higher hopes based on some of the reviews. I really miss New Sunny, at least CL still has the Breakers for decent fried rice.
Review Source:The food is great! Â Atmosphere is nice too. Â I read the previous revews and decided to try it anyway. Â Our entire family loved it. Â Really, we couldn't find anything wrong with it. Â Worthy of 5 stars? Â Maybe, but I reserve that for when I'm blown away. Â We will defintely be going back.
Review Source:I wish there was a zero star rating maybe even a negative. This by far has been the worst Asian restaurant I have ever been too and I have been to a lot (myself being Asian). My boyfriend and I went there last night. It took forever for our waitress to come help us. Another employee came up to us apologizing for our waitress taking so long. There were probably around 5 other couples/customers in the whole restaurant including us. I don't know why it took so long to ask us what we wanted to drink. We ordered alcoholic drinks which came at a ok time. Placed our order of 2 egg rolls, Crispy schezwan Beef, and General Tso's Chicken. Both entrees we ordered with fried rice that cost us extra. Egg rolls came and were ok, nothing to rave about. The entrees came and were absolutely dreadful. My chicken didn't taste or feel like chicken. After eating one piece, I had a gut feeling not to eat anymore. Usually when I get that feeling and keep eating I get food poisoning. My boyfriend ate a good amount. The fried rice didn't taste like anything. Disgrace to Asian food by far. We asked the waitress for our bill and said we want to send our food back because it was terrible and don't want to take it home. She did not even apologize which is terrible service. Almost a $50.00 meal that we mostly didn't eat. $1.50 for each egg roll. $4.50 for a beer and $4.75 for sake. The rest spent on horrible in-edible food. We spent a good 45+minutes there. Walking to our car, my boyfriend runs to the grass and throws up. He had not eaten for 6 hours so it had to be the food at Chen's. I end up calling and asked for the manager. He called over our waitress and I heard them arguing in the background. Apparently they didn't have a mute button. He kept saying they were busy earlier; I have plenty of experience in the food industry as well as a sanitation license. A good restaurant should have consistent excellent before, during, and after the dinner rush. We ended up being told that we are getting our entrees refunded back to my boyfriends card. He has not had the chance to make sure they did. DO NOT GO TO CHENS.On the positve note...it does look nice for an empty restaurant.
Review Source:We live close by but until tonight had not tried this place. It was fabulous! The food was great (and we are picky!). I got the honey sesame chicken Mmmmm. SO much food we could only eat 1/2. The waitress was extremely attentive and our food arrived really fast. We will definitely be back.
Review Source:Being Asian, I can not honestly recommend this place (both the main restaurant and the carryout). Â The lunch buffet sucked and the redeeming factor is the price only. Â The dinner menus is big but their dishes really lack authentic flavors. Â I only would go for takeout of the Singapore noodles as everything else is average and therefore not worth the drive.
Review Source:Three glorious words, General...Tso's...Chicken.
When I moved to the city I tried to find a comparable substitute only to fail miserably. Their General Tso's just can't be beat. Overall it's just an all around great Chinese place. Everything is very fresh and I've yet to have a bad dish.
General Tso's Chicken= A+
Crab rangoon= A
Eggrolls=A+
Triple Crown Sizzling=A
For this neck of the northwest woods, the food is better than most Chinese eateries, however, the help is downright mean. If you order by phone, get ready to be yelled at by young and older Chinese women. They don't like it if you have any questions about the menu. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "YOU CAN"T GET DINNER SPECIAL WITH HONEY SHRIMP!!" "I AM BUSY!"
Honestly, I think people in the area put up with this creepiness  because there isn't any other minimally decent Chinese food around. (HELLO - Chinese restaurants - open a competing place here). Plus - they pay their delivery people $0.00 (I asked more than a few - they are very nice HS and college kids) which I think may be illegal.
Good eggrolls but be ready to PAY EXTRA for homemade Chinese mustard as opposed to chemically laden gunk in plastic packs. Nothing exotic beyond Singapore Noodles which are bereft of shrimp or pork. Surprisingly, chop suey (that old stalwart of the 1960's) is pretty good and filled with sorta crisp veggies.
All in all, a step above mediocre - but it's the best around here. The whole staff needs to take a charm class.
I went there with a friend one day because she recommended it. I'm not a huge fan of buffets, but I decided to give theirs a try. The food tasted old and dry, nothing special. I know it's a buffet, but they could have tried harder. Everything was greasy and tasted all the same...salty. Service is alright, but servers don't have to do much when it's a buffet. The only reason why I'm not giving a one-star is because nothing was terrible enough where I couldn't eat it. I also ordered a carryout the following week just to make sure it wasn't the buffet. It didn't taste anything different. I know this place is popular in the Crystal Lake area, but I guess I'm just not their type of customer.
Review Source:"Blek."
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The following is an explanation of the complexity of this "Blek" review:
This reviewer stumbled upon this place while running lunch-time errands. They offered a buffet that wasn't cheap and but it was sleazy. This was a poor, sorry attempt at anything Asian and had been so over cooked and smothered in some sort of brown sauce it hardly resembled food. Â It smelled like canned brown gravy with no other discernible flavors.
It was astonishing to look around and see at least five other tables of seemingly happy diners piling on the food and noshing away happily. A bit surreal.
The reviewer did not eat this slop, but instead quickly left money to pay the bill and a full, untouched plate. Â ...Blek.
Hands down the best Chinese food in the area. Everything is fresh and very flavorful. Always friendly service, consistent quality. I would highly recommend ordering the peking duck (with 24 hours advance notice). We order one for Chinese New Year every year and it is phenomenal. All the usual classic Chinese fare is always perfect all the way down to their egg drop soup and egg rolls.
Review Source:I have only dined-in here a few times (it is cold sometimes in the winter) and never gone to the lunch buffet, but I've ordered take-out/delivery more times than I can remember in the past decade. Â This is consistently my favorite place for Chinese food in the area, only Plum Garden in McHenry tops it when looking to dine out.
IMO, the only weak point is that the breading on any sweat/sour dishes is average, but the other dishes are always great; the Kung Pao is probably the best.
First, if you are going there during winter, do not go right when it opens, or even 1 hour after it's scheduled to open. Reason? The heater is not yet on, the buffet table is not yet ready and you feel like an eskimo, except without all that heavy fur coat.
We went for the lunch buffet which goes from Monday to Saturday, from 11am to 3pm. I order the Egg Foo Young because I have NEVER had it, and my friend ordered the Empress Shrimp. We had fried rice with our meal and hot and sour soup. It was just ok, but then again, I am a harsh critic of Asian foods, Chinese food particularly because that's all I've been eating and making for much of my life.
The Egg Food Young was bland, and I assumed that there would be some flavor. The Empress Shrimp had good flavor and they used big shrimps. The portions were very good for lunch and no lunch special was over $9.00. I would go back and try other lunch specials, but I'm hesitant to go during normal hours because of the price of the dishes - I'm just not accustomed to paying so much for Chinese food, but it could be a sign of the times.
Despite the low rating, I would go back again and try it out. There's potential for their rating to increase.